Libyan operations aim toward normality

CMA-CGM are beginning to return ships to Tripoli – while the line stopped its calls to the capital in August, it managed to keep going to other ports during the unrest.

Maersk Line, which stopped accepting Libyan cargo in February has said it will resume services from next week, 8 September, with initial calls at Benghazi, adding that it will continue to evaluate the feasibility of sending cargo to other Libyan ports too, considering the safety of its staff, so a return of services to Misuratah and Al Khoms may well soon follow.

While humanitarian aid will be amongst the most important goods to arrive there, the first ship to call at Benghazi will mainly be delivering freight that has been held in other Mediterranean ports while the unrest played out.

The National Transitional Council (NTC) has already asked the EU to lift the sanctions against Libyan ports along with 22 other bodies, and the move to comply coincided with the start of an international conference on Libya, dubbed “Friends of Libya,” in Paris, yesterday.

Further, the UN Security Council agreed last week to unblock US$1.5 billion in Libyan assets frozen in US banks and it authorised Britain to release US$1.6 dollars yesterday to provide humanitarian aid to Tripoli.